The last of the cousins has died.
As Jimmy Lee grew older and more certain that he was on the path of the righteous, he prayed for the salvation of his first cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, the early wild man of rock ’n’ roll who married several times (one bride was his 13-year-old cousin) and who thumbed his nose at conventional morality, as the writer Nick Tosches recounted in “Hellfire,” his biography of Mr. Lewis.
The country singer Mickey Gilley was also a first cousin to both Mr. Swaggart and Mr. Lewis. About the same age, the three boys were childhood companions. They learned to play an uncle’s piano and occasionally disobeyed their parents by going to a Black nightclub, where they were entranced by the music and dancing, Mr. Tosches wrote.
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